


Rodney McKay's Fourth of July

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-03
Updated: 2008-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John makes a list.</p><p>Rodney McKay is:</p><p>a) A Marine-baiting idiot<br/>    b) A literature-bashing blowhard who, in the privacy of his own quarters, is utterly defenseless against the power of a well-turned phrase<br/>    c) About to get owned</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rodney McKay's Fourth of July

John makes a list.

> Rodney McKay is:
> 
> a) A Marine-baiting idiot  
> b) A literature-bashing blowhard who, in the privacy of his own quarters, is utterly defenseless against the power of a well-turned phrase  
> c) About to get owned

  
*****

The whole of Atlantis knows about a). In the whispered cultural history of the city, passed by word-of-mouth to the new personnel who gate in from Earth, there's a special reverence for the McKay-Marine war of attrition that spanned several months of the expedition's first year – fake Wraith drills that had Rodney cowering under his desk; the loss of an entire company's underwear in a tragic shredding accident; the defacement of seventeen critical laptops with sparkly Hello Kitty stickers; the purple-dye-in-the-showers incident. Things ended amicably, right around the time someone 'unearthed' an old policy paper suggesting all military personnel provide each other with pedicure services, and since then there's been plenty in the way of bawdy jokes and withering sarcasm, but no one's tried to perm anyone's hair.

Except the Fourth of July brings out the worst in everyone, John's decided – the Marines start thinking it's a good idea to make small things explode, in color, inside Rodney's labs, and Rodney can't seem to help but call out the Founding Fathers for being fat, adulterous, alcoholic sweathogs with a predilection for anarchy and genocide. The fireworks get bigger, George Washington's nose gets dragged into the fray, there's a brief incident with firecrackers, and the next thing John hears Rodney's called someone a total son-of-a-Jefferson, and Lorne and Zelenka are making out in the hall in what they insist is a thoroughly patriotic way.

After making sure there are enough halfway sane men and women to guard the base if the Wraith decide not to observe American holidays, John sets out to track Rodney down. He doesn't bother with the labs – the foam, homemade stink bombs and glitter showers are an obvious getaway tactic – and while he ducks his head in the mess, it's mostly for show; he's not all that surprised to find Rodney in his quarters, the door locked and a sign stuck to the console:

> DO NOT DISTURB UNTIL JULY 5th, OR UNTIL YOU CAN DEBATE THE WOEFUL INADEQUACIES OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT. YOUR PRETTY, PRETTY WHITE HOUSE WOULDN'T BE WHITE IF WE HADN'T BURNED IT, SO SUCK ON THAT, YOU MORONS.
> 
> P.S. THE FRENCH SAY THANKS FOR 1793. SEE WHAT YOU DID?

John makes swift work of the locking mechanism – it's a pretty good attempt, but Atlantis likes him best – and ambles into Rodney's room, humming a Sousa march.

Rodney's sitting on his bed, stripped down to t-shirt and boxer shorts, hair on end and a lick-and-stick Pokémon tattoo prominent on his forearm. "What?" he snaps.

"Happy Fourth," John says pleasantly.

Rodney rolls his eyes. "You overrode the lock for that piece of originality? Terribly amusing. Now be a good little Revolutionary and leave me alone, go eat some sausage-meat, whatever it is you people do to celebrate throwing off your oppressive overlords."

"I'd love to," John says with mock solemnity. "But see, I got a bunch of Marines who are out of commission right now because _someone_ spiked their punch before suggesting Yankee Doodle Dandy contained super secret eighteenth-century attack codes, and if they could only find them, they'd get their _own_ song."

Rodney snickers.

"You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" John asks.

Rodney blinks and tries to look innocent. "Me? No. No, no, nothing at all." He smirks just a little. "But I think you'll find that while I – or whomever – showed a certain Isaac Brock-ian brilliance in my undermining of key segments of the American military, I also was careful to protect a more than adequate defense contingent from any, shall we say, shenanigans? Atlantis will remain safe while the Yankees doodle." He beams at John. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Rodney," John sighs, shaking his head, stripping off his jacket. "You can't go around . . ."

"Yes, yes, spare me the lecture, blah blah, proud tradition, yada yada, patriotism, democracy, save the world, Superman, Batman, American way, yackety-yak."

John quirks an eyebrow. "You got it all figured out."

"Yes, yes I do," Rodney says, distracted, focused on his laptop agian. He makes shooing motions with one hand.

John eyes him for a moment. "Hey, how's that essay go, the one you liked, you know . . . Paine's thing?" He scratches the back of his neck. "Right, right . . . these are the times that try men's souls."

Rodney's head snaps up; his eyes narrow. "Oh, now . . ."

"Kinda eloquent stuff . . . The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country?" John grins easily, as if the words are some happy accident of memory. "But he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Rodney's nostrils flare. "You seriously spent half the afternoon memorizing Paine just to try and get a . . ." He squirms. "Rise out of me?"

John smiles. "Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered," he says, voice pitched deliberately low. He sits on the bed beside Rodney, closes the laptop and sets it on the bedside table. "Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

Rodney whimpers. "Oh that is _unfair_ , Sheppard!"

"What we obtain too cheap," John whispers, leaning in to nudge his nose against Rodney's jaw, "we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."

"I am Canadian!" Rodney protests feebly. "I would've been a Loyalist!"

"Heaven knows," John says, shifting so that his lips are mere millimeters from Rodney's own, "how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."

"Oh, you are such a neo-imperial bastard," Rodney mutters, and he crushes their mouths together, kissing John as if this is their own particular form of war.

As battles go, it's a particularly satisfying one, involving tactical nakedness, a tussle for dominance, and a great deal of territorial mapping with teeth, lips, wandering fingers, and slick, devious tongues. John loses Tom Paine's words somewhere around the moment Rodney sticks a hand down the back of his pants, and after that he throws out anything he can remember – stray phrases from the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to the Constitution, a line or two from the Gettysburg address. Rodney squirms and squawks, bites down on his shoulder, wrestles him, thrusts against him, groans in helpless delight when John starts quoting John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, men with "ridiculous theories of _god_ , right there!" (or something of the like), and when they finally come, one after the other, it's thankfully without much in the way of words and a lot in the way of grunts and curses as make each other sticky and collapse in a gasping heap.

"You're trying to kill me," Rodney says eventually, head buried somewhere under John's belly.

John rolls off him, flops on his back – he still has Sousa running through his head. "No'really," he slurs.

"Yes. Yes, yes," Rodney groans, stretching and sagging against the mattress, the untucked sheets. "Y'still want Canada. Continent hogs."

John snorts and starts laughing, rolls over and blows a raspberry against Rodney's chest, laughs even harder when Rodney bats at him with ineffectual, sex-addled hands. "S'right," John says, propping his chin on Rodney's belly. "I'm fucking you for my country. Stealth ops. My cock and its magical patriotic powers."

"Making me have an American orgasm," Rodney says mournfully.

"Exactly," John agrees. "Mess with my Marines, and it'll only end in you coming . . ."

"All over the Federalist Papers," Rodney sighs.

"James Madison wants your dick," John agrees.

Rodney hums thoughtfully. "Does this mean my prostate no longer has nationalized healthcare?" he asks. "Because it's against that."

John crawls up the bed and presses a kiss to his shoulder. "I think we can agree this was a one-time thing. Unless you fuck with my Marines again."

Rodney pokes him in the arm. "Hey! Your Marines were fucking with me too."

"And I think they've paid for it in sparkles that may never wash off."

"S'true," Rodney says airily, shifting around until he seems to get comfortable, hauling John in to sleep in the wet patch. "I suppose I can give up the high ground for the good of international cooperation." He opens one eye and peers at John. "Pierre Trudeau could totally make you come, you know."

John snorts and claps a hand over Rodney's mouth. "Shut up."

"Charlottetown Accord?" Rodney continues, voice muffled. "Hot stuff!"

"No more!"

"Oooooo, Caaaanadaaaaa . . . "

Which is when John decides perhaps he should kiss him quiet, one last full measure of devotion, a treaty to preserve the world's supply of generally affable afterglow.


End file.
